State v. Johnson
Annotate this CaseDefendant Vicki Johnson was inside her boyfriend's apartment when police officers were dispatched to the apartment on a report of a burglary in progress. When officer Shannon Tucker was questioning Johnson in the kitchen, Johnson reached inside her pursue for cigarettes. Tucker grabbed the pack of cigarettes, looked inside, and discovered a glass pipe. This led Tucker to thoroughly search Johnson's purse, where he found cocaine. Johnson was ultimately convicted of possession of cocaine. Johnson appealed, challenging the existence of reasonable suspicion to justify continuation of her investigatory detention and the officer safety-based seizure and search of the cigarette pack. The court of appeals reversed, holding that Tucker was not permitted to search the pack of cigarettes after removing it from Johnson's control because any threat was neutralized by seizure of the pack. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that once Tucker secured the pack of cigarettes, any threat its contents may have posed was eliminated and no further search was permitted. Remanded.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.